


Ebb and Flow

by Ias



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Deathfic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-16
Updated: 2012-10-16
Packaged: 2017-11-16 11:10:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/538796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ias/pseuds/Ias
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's always been something about the ocean that reminds Dean of God; it's vast, unfathomable, and shows no sign of caring about the angel dying beside it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ebb and Flow

**Author's Note:**

> Response to the prompt "ocean, memory, alcohol" via margo_kim.

They sit on the beach. They've been there all night. Again and again the tide rushes in, rolling like a foamy carpet before curling back into itself with a sigh. It sounds like breathing. Dean wonders which breath will be Cas’s last. 

There are beer bottles all around them, sticking out of the sand at odd angles. All of them are empty. Dean hasn’t touched a drop. From the ragged sound of Cas’s breathing, the alcohol hasn’t done him much good either. His face is drained of any color, and Dean could say that it’s just the white of the moonlight but he’d never been any good at lying to himself. It’s Cas’s eyes, though, that really show it. They’re old, and tired, and angry. 

Cas turns his head, a grinding, painful movement, to return Dean’s stare. And he remembers this. God, does he remember. For years Dean’s been staring into those eyes like they’re the last thing holding him onto this earth. Looking at Cas had felt like home, but now all it does is carve him up and hollow him out.

“You’d think,” Cas says, and his voice is shattered. “You’d think that, in a moment like this, I would return my faith to God.” The silence stretches out. It’s terrifying. “But I won’t. I won’t do it. He abandoned me long ago. And I won’t go crawling back to Him now.” He laughs bitterly. It’s the worst sound Dean’s ever heard. “What a spiteful creature I turned out to be.”

“I want to feel the ocean,” he says suddenly, struggling to sit up and failing. Dean catches his shoulders and curls arms around his chest, half-dragging, half-carrying him to where the sand is wet and heavy. They sink down together, Cas stretched out with his head lolling back onto Dean’s shoulder. They watch the waves. The water is shockingly cold, but Cas doesn’t seem to feel it and Dean doesn’t care.

Dean thinks maybe he should kiss him now, like he owes it to Cas or to himself. One final blasphemy. But he doesn’t. He’s not that cruel. All those years with Cas by his side, and some things never change. They watch the waves play around their toes, seeping into the their clothes and tugging them towards the sea. Maybe it’s a cleansing, or maybe it’s just sand and saltwater; Dean will never know for sure. The waves recede with a tired breath, and this time Castiel goes with them.


End file.
